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Brian Chesky Hacked the Chicken-and-Egg Problem by Riding Obama's Coattails

By Brian Chesky · Investing · 1 min read

No hosts. No guests. No money. Then Barack Obama moved to an 80,000-seat stadium and Airbnb saw their shot.

Key Points

Marketplaces are incredibly defensible at scale because they're incredibly hard to start
Airbnb piggybacked on the 2008 Democratic National Convention to get first users
It's better to have 100 people love you than a million people kind of like you

It's better to have 100 people love you than a million people kind of like you.

The Chicken and Egg

Chesky: Marketplaces are incredibly defensible at scale, and maybe it's because they're incredibly hard to start. Travelers don't want to book homes if there are no homes. Homeowners don't want to list if no one's going to book them. So what do you do?

That was really hard. We didn't know what to do for a while. We tried a lot of different things.

Marketplaces are incredibly defensible at scale because they're incredibly hard to start.

Obama's 80,000-Seat Stadium

Chesky: Summer of 2008. Barack Obama moved the Democratic National Convention from a 20,000-seat basketball arena to an 80,000-seat football stadium. We said — that's our shot. 60,000 people don't have housing. Surely at least a few of them are going to need a place to stay.

It was in the spirit of the Obama campaign that people wanted to stay with other people. Kind of a grassroots movement.

Zero to CNN in Three Weeks

Chesky: We started with local people in Denver. Then we started emailing bloggers. We got the bloggers. Then the Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News covered us. Then the local ABC, NBC, CBS affiliates. Then Wall Street Journal. Then New York Times. Eventually CNN is in our living room.

Over the course of three weeks it went from a few guys in an apartment — no business, no money, completely broke, no press — to a few guys in a living room with still no business, still no money, still completely broke, maybe even more broke. But now we're on CNN and New York Times.

Over three weeks it went from no press to CNN in our living room. Still no money. Maybe even more broke. But now we're on CNN.

100 People Who Love You

Chesky: Paul Graham, our first investor, said it's better to have 100 people love you than a million people kind of like you. With a wide, shallow base you'll never even meet them.

With 100 people, you can find out everything they want. Most of these people have never even met somebody who started a website. You meet them, you spend a ton of time with them. Once they fall in love with you as a product, they'll tell every one of their friends.

That's why it took a really long time to start but it grew much faster later on.

It's better to have 100 people love you than a million people kind of like you.